Fulton County election turnout surged in the evening

Voters lined up early at Henry W. Grady High School at 929 Charles Allen Dr NE in Atlanta on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017 to cast their votes. Only about 20,000 of 250,000 registered voters cast early ballots in Atlanta’s mayoral election, a likely sign of low turnout for Tuesdays vote to succeed Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. A late WSB-TV poll, released on Friday,showed Councilwoman Keisha Lance Bottoms leading Councilwoman Mary Norwood for the first time with 25 percent of the vote to Norwood’s 23 percent. JOHN SPINK/JSPINK@AJC.COM

About 130,000 people voted in the county, Barron said, with about 88,000 of those votes coming on election day. Turnout was slow and steady, he said, then surged in the evening. There are nearly 641,000 registered voters in the county, putting turnout at about 20 percent countywide.

Barron said one precinct had minor issues in the morning that required voters to vote provisionally for about 20 minutes. Otherwise, he said, “it was pretty quiet.”

Fulton County residents voted for a new leader of the county government, in addition to a number of city elections, school board races and some state senator and representative races. The most high-profile is the Atlanta mayor’s race.